1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for production of ground fish meat products or thier analogues, and more particularly, first, to a process for production of ground fish meat products or their analogues, which comprises using, as the main raw material, non-salt ground fish meat, instead of the conventional salt ground fish meat, along with a gel of glucomannan hydrate, or a gel of glucomannan hydrate alone, and second, to a process for production of ground fish meat products or their analogues, which comprises using, the main raw material, non-salt, well-ground fish meat only, or non-salt, well-ground fish meat and a gel of glucomannan hydrate.
2. Description of Prior Art
Briefly, prior-art processes for production of ground fish meat products such as Japanese kamaboko comprise grinding fish meat with salt (i.e., sodium chloride) added thereto (i.e., salt-grinding) to make viscous paste, and molding and heating said paste into an elastic gel.
In greater details, in order to obtain elasticity, a certain physical taste (texture), for such-products, salt (e.g., ca 3% based on the starting fish meat) is added generally in three portions to said starting fish meat, and the mass is mixed and ground, whereby viscous ground fish meat is obtained wherein myofibrils of fish protein are mechanically disrupted and mixed, then said viscous ground fish meat is shaped into the shape of a desired product and subjected to suwari (i.e., setting), and, finally, the shaped material is heated so that the center of the material should be, for example, about 75.degree. C., to give a hydrogel retaining water (i.e., prior-art ground fish meat product).
All of thus produced, prior-art ground fish meat products such as Japanese kamaboko, Japanese chikuwa, Japanese satsumaage, fish ham or sausage, as well as Japanese narutomaki, Japanese datemaki, Japanese hampen, Japanese shinjo and the like exhibit their own particular gel-like textures, though saltground fish meat as the main raw material is common to all these products, since they are produced through their respective particular manufacturing steps, including their own auxiliary raw materials.
However, salt-grinding (i.e., grinding something such as fish meat together with salt, or grinding something with salt being added thereto), which is an essential step for treating the starting fish meat, limits various prior-art ground fish meat products in taste to within a certain range of similar kamaboko-like taste. For example, salt-grinding prevents kamaboko-type products from their use instead of animal meat for western dishes, for example, ingredients in curry.
In addition, in order to increase quantity or to control calorie (i.e., to reduce calorie), of ground fish meat products, various processes have been proposed and discussed, for example, a process wherein purified konnyaku powder, the main raw material for making konjak jelly (i.e., Japanese traditional food konnyaku), is, after hydrated/swollen and added/mixed with a coagulating agent, added to other raw materials, or a process which comprises blending vegetable gum, carrageenan, etc., with other raw materials. However, such processes fail to provide ground fish meat products with favorable texture peculiar to kamaboko, thus they are insufficient to attain their objects. Accordingly, the problems have not been solved yet.
3. Problems to be Solved by the Invention
Up to now, fish meat (including so-called Japanese frozen surimi, i.e., a kind of frozen fish meat paste), which is a common raw material for ground fish meat products, is subjected to salt-grinding, which is an essential step to obtain gels having their own texture peculiar to the respective final ground fish meat products, and the thus obtained viscous ground fish meat is made into the final products through their respective particular manufacturing steps. Accordingly, peculiar taste or texture of the conventional ground fish meat products essentially resembles that of kamaboko, which prevents them from their diversified applications for food.
The present inventor has paid attention to such facts, and an object of the present invention is to provide processes for production of ground fish meat products or their analogues having such gel-like texture as prior-art ground fish meat products, even without salt-grinding of the starting fish meat (i.e., without using salt-ground fish meat at all), salt-grinding being an essential step in conventional processes for production of ground fish meat products.